


Attention, All Personnel

by Annakovsky



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-15
Updated: 2005-10-15
Packaged: 2017-10-09 13:46:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/88123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annakovsky/pseuds/Annakovsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's one of those frigid days, the ones where it's so cold that in the operating room steam is coming up from the bodies in pale threads.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Attention, All Personnel

It's one of those frigid days, the ones where it's so cold that in the operating room steam is coming up from the bodies in pale threads. When BJ cuts open a kid's belly to operate it's a relief to put his hands inside to fish out shrapnel, the boy's gut like a furnace, his fingers soaking in the warmth. They operate for sixteen hours, and when they're finished he's so tired he's swaying, and he sits on the bench in the scrubs room staring into space because anything else is too much effort. Hawkeye and Charles are bickering halfheartedly and for a moment BJ's mind flickers and he sees them as a collection of organs, split open on the operating table. Blood hot on his hands, their spleens pink and healthy, hearts pumping away. He blinks the image away, and when he glances up, Hawkeye is giving him a funny look.

"C'mon, Beej, breakfast first, *then* collapse."

If a sniper got him, Hawkeye's brains would be pinkish gray and the texture of gelatin. BJ pushes the thought away and says, "If the exhaustion doesn't get you, the oatmeal will."

In the mess tent, Hawkeye slides onto the bench next to him, so close their sides are touching, and BJ reflexively leans into him, just a little. It's so cold, and the food's so bad, and he's so tired, and the warmth of Hawkeye's body is seeping into him, and he can't stand another day of this, he can't.

Hawkeye rests his hand on his leg, underneath the table, but they're sitting so close it's half-resting on BJ's thigh too, the back of Hawkeye's hand, a clever surgeon's hand, long cold fingers, skin raw at the knuckles. BJ closes his eyes. He is too tired to even lift his coffee cup, and much too tired to move away or to move closer, and he's not sure which he wants to do anyway. When he opens his eyes again, his eggs are the same jaundiced yellow as before, and nothing has changed, nothing ever changes except to get worse, nothing.

Hawkeye is talking, talking, talking, even though no one's listening, and across the table Radar's head goes up like a dog's, his glasses flashing when they catch the light, his silly winter hat tipping back off his forehead.

"Choppers," he says. BJ listens to the empty silence behind Hawkeye's monologue, and a minute later he hears them too, and they are all pushing themselves up in a rattle of silverware and benches and trays, adrenaline hitting hard so he's not sleepy anymore.

It's another miserable unending day in a Korean operating room, and his hands are warm inside an 18-year-old's chest cavity, and at the next table Hawkeye's singing.

***  
END


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